The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London W10 4RA

The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery
GUIDED TOURS -- SUNDAY at 14:00 OPEN DAY : Saturday, 5 July 2008 SUMMER CONCERTS * MUSIC HALL
		Kensal Green Cemetery
		The General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green, is one of Britain's oldest and most beautiful public burial grounds. One of the world's first garden cemeteries, and doyen of London's Magnificent Seven, Kensal Green received its first funeral in January 1833, and still conducts burials and cremations daily. The cemetery was innovative in having most of the site consecrated by the Church of England, but reserving the eastern spur for Dissenters and others to practise their own rites. Today, people of many faiths and denominations are buried throughout the cemetery. Uniquely among British cemeteries, Kensal Green has been managed by the same private joint-stock company since its inception: the General Cemetery Company (est. 1830) still has its offices by the Main Gate. The cemetery now covers some 72 acres (29 hectares) between the Grand Union Canal and Harrow Road in west London, and is open to visitors every day of the year.
		Tours of the Cemetery
		The Friends of Kensal Green offer a two-hour introductory tour -- covering the history, architecture and many famous incumbents of the cemetery every Sunday from March to October, and the first and third Sundays of each month from November to February. Tours begin at 14:00 from the Anglican Chapel in the centre of the grounds, and finish around two hours later with tea and biscuits at the Dissenters’ Chapel, adjacent to Ladbroke Grove. On the first and third Sunday of each month, this tour also descends to the catacomb beneath the Anglican Chapel. Tours are offered in all weathers, so please wear appropriate outdoor clothing and walking shoes -- and also please note that the catacomb, although safe and clean, are not suitable for children under the age of 12. Private tours can be arranged on any day of the week, and the Friends also offer a variety of specialist tours that can be tailored as outings for societies, clubs and schools. A suggested donation of £5 per person (concessions £4) will help to support the Friends' work in helping to maintain, study and attract visitors to Kensal Green.
		History
		The plan for London's first garden cemetery was initiated by the barrister George Frederick Carden, who was inspired by a visit to Père-Lachaise in Paris in 1821. Alert both to the need for new burial grounds, and the commercial potential of the venture, Carden founded the General Cemetery Company in 1830, with influential supporters including Andrew Spottiswoode MP and the banker John Dean Paul of Rodburgh, Bart. The cemetery was established by Act of Parliament which had its final reading in July 1832, during a cholera epidemic -- a coincidence that implicitly made the case for reform. The Bishop of London consecrated the first 48 acres in January 1833, and the first funeral was conducted a week later. Boardroom dramas saw Carden excluded from the company he founded, but Kensal Green went on to weather financial crises, changing fashions, even wartime bombing, to become a national necropolis of the great and the good, a valued local institution, and a heritage site of international importance.
		Notable personalities
		From the funeral of HRH The Duke of Sussex in 1843 to that of his nephew HRH The Duke of Cambridge in 1904, Kensal Green was the most fashionable cemetery in England. Its notable personalities include some 500 members of the titled nobility and over 550 individuals noted in the Dictionary of National Biography. Kensal Green is the resting place of the engineers Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the mathematician Charles Babbage, and the novelists Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope and William Makepeace Thackeray; Lord Byron's wife, Oscar Wilde's mother, Charles Dickens' in-laws and Winston Churchill's daughter; a cross-dressing Army doctor and the surgeon who attended Nelson at Trafalgar; the creator of Pears' Soap, and the original WH Smith; the funambulist Blondin and the Savoyard George Grossmith; the first man to cross Australia from south to north, and the last man to fight a duel in England; the Duke's nephew who ruined the richest heiress of the day, and the English adventuress who became a French baronne disgraced by the accusation of murder.
		Monuments
		Kensal Green boasts some 140 Grade I, II* and II Listed buildings and monuments, including the magnificent Anglican Chapel (top photo), Dissenters' Chapel (bottom photo) and Main Gate (left). Despite an architectural competition won by the Gothic designs of Henry Edward Kendall, the Company eventually awarded the contract to the Neo-Classical designs of John Griffith of Finsbury, an active member of the Company who eventually became its Director. Kensal Green's funerary monuments represent every shade of taste, fashion and materials from the solid classicism of the Birkbeck and Paul family mausolea to the Gothic extravagance of Capt. Charles Spencer Ricketts and the 7th Viscount Strangford, by way of the Mughal tradition of Daboda Dewajee, the miniature art gallery of William Mulready RA, the 'Old Armchair' of composer Henry Russell, the broken down circus horse of equestrian Alfred Cooke, and the utter originality of the Ducrow, Casement and Molyneux family monuments, as well as several handsome modern Memorials by Artists.
		Natural History
		Kensal Green was designed in the spirit of an English country park, to plans including those of Richard Forrest, a landscape gardener whose aristocratic connections included Eaton Hall, Cheshire, and Syon Park, Middlesex. Its plantings were much influenced by the theories of John Claudius Loudon (who is buried at Kensal Green), although an early experiment with cedars quickly gave way to horse-chestnuts and other deciduous species. The cemetery was much commended for the beauty and tranquillity of its landscape, and even maintained its own conservatory for the better part of a century. In 1938, Edward White designed a handsome Garden of Remembrance by the Crematorium. Although the demand for grave space has modified its landscape, Kensal Green now enjoys a wealth of mature trees, and a remarkable array of wildflowers -- as well as a variety of wildlife, from squirrels and foxes to bees and butterflies.
		The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery
		The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery is an independent registered charity (No. 1106549) dedicated to the preservation, conservation and restoration, for the public benefit, of the Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green -- in particular, the monuments, buildings and burial records. The Friends maintain the Dissenters' Chapel (left) for funerals, special events and exhibitions, as well as running weekly tours, an annual Open Day (Sunday, 2 July 2006) and seasonal evening lectures. Membership of the Friends is open to anyone with an interest in the cemetery, its history and heritage. As well as helping to support conservation, restoration and research at the cemetery, Friends enjoy unlimited free access to the Sunday afternoon tours, a quarterly magazine, reduced admission to lectures, special offers on publications, and occasional events including visits to sites of interest around Greater London.